Canine Hemangiosarcoma Research Updates

canine hemangiosarcoma update main graphic shows an abstract from a 2017 study with a portion highlighted of the text highlighted to feature the overall results

It’s tempting to give this a title in the form of a question. Like this: Does This New Treatment for Canine Hemangiosarcoma Work? But, that’s become kind of a comical online news click-bait thing. Whenever you see a title like that, just assume the answer is NO. Seriously. The question is provocative. The answer is almost, always no. Instead, let’s look at a couple of papers that describe an experimental treatment for canine hemangiosarcoma, using something called eBAT. One looked somewhat promising. The other, with more rounds of treatments, did not.

What is Canine Hemangiosarcoma?

Canine hemangiosarcoma is an aggressive, fatal form of cancer that most often develops in a dog’s spleen — but it can show up other places too, including the heart and other blood-rich areas of the body.

Often only discovered at an advanced stage, most dogs (50+%) diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma die within 4-6 months. Nearly 90% of die within a year. It’s bad.

We lost our yellow lab mix, Cody, to it decades ago, and it’s devastating.

We’ve written about it before, where researchers in North Carolina are looking at a possible link between hemangiosarcoma in dogs and Bartonella bacteria.

What is eBAT?

eBat is an abbreviation for epidermal growth factor bispecific ligand-targeted angiotoxin. It’s a newish drug for sarcomas that targets both the tumor itself and the new blood vessels that feed the tumor.

What About the Promising eBAT Study in 2017?

So, the study published in 2017…

  • Featured just 23 dogs
  • Tested the administration of 3 eBAT infusions after surgery to remove the dogs’ spleens
  • Then, administered standard chemotherapy (doxorubicin)

The researchers report that nearly 70% of the dogs in the study survived to the 6-month mark.

And, 5 of the dogs survived beyond 450 days, which is really something. I only know one dog with hemangiosarcoma who lived more than a year.

What About the Later eBAT Study Published in 2020?

Well, that’s where things didn’t go so well. The 2020 study…

  • Featured 25 dogs
  • Bumped up the eBAT treatments to 3 full cycles
  • Shortened the time between the eBat treatments and the other chemotherapy (doxorubicin)

And, the results were not good.

Cancer persisted in the dogs, and 6 of the dogs developed significant and really low blood pressures. Plus, the high survival rate seen in the earlier study vanished.

So, basically, doing more eBAT treatments didn’t make things better and sort of made things worse.

What Does That Mean, Then, for Treatment Options of Canine Hemangiosarcoma?

It means that the use of eBAT is promising, but there’s still a lot of to figure out before we’d ever really see it as a wide-spread treatment option for dogs with hemangiosarcoma. I wish I had better news, but I don’t.

The authors of the second paper said this: “Further work is needed to understand the precise mechanisms of action of eBAT in order to optimize its clinical benefits in the treatment of canine haemangiosarcoma and other tumours.”